The Texans are unrelenting, I tell you what. Houston controlled the ball against the Atlanta Falcons and their defense forced a couple of turnovers in route to a win. T.J. Yates may have completed less than 50% of his passes, but he wasn't afraid to go down the field every once in a while, something the Texans and Gary Kubiak were reluctant to do with Matt Leinart. Houston lost Andre Johnson for another week or two after an injury, but their odds of making the playoffs are very high, as they have one more game against Indianapolis to get to the 10 win mark.

Packers Look Mortal
After a near loss to the Giants, the Packers moved down a spot in the rankings (and the Giants moved up two). The defense continues to look like a serious problem, which may not come as a surprise seeing that the Packers spent a good deal of their early draft picks on offensive players. We can pretty well assume that Green Bay will be drafting some defensive help next year, including a run-stopper or two, another pass rusher and a safety. In the meantime, they'll have to play with what they have on their current roster, and we shall have to see if the offense can continue to carry the club come playoff time.

Notes and Fun Facts

While our rankings aren't too fond of the 49ers since we don't factor in special teams, the defense did what they were supposed to do on Sunday: hold the Rams scoreless. More impressive than holding St. Louis scoreless is holding Steven Jackson to a mere 19 yards on ten carries.

The Saints are looking very powerful at the moment, but that could be because they were playing at home against a team missing their most valuable defensive asset. New Orleans' group of ball carriers continues to put up solid production, and Darren Sproles continues to be one of the best offensive weapons in football. While the Saints are ranked fourth at the moment, I'd be concerned about them performing well on the road, as last year's loss to the Seahawks illustrates.

Tim Tebow watch: Don't get too excited about Tebow completing ten of the fifteen passes he threw on Sunday. Other than his spectacular play in which Demaryius Thomas scored a TD, Tebow was making pretty simple throws to open receivers. While you shouldn't get too excited, hitting open receivers was something he wasn't doing this well a couple of weeks ago. Progress! The Broncos could end up making the postseason with a ranking around 18th or 20th if they keep this up.

The Vikings appear to have a strong future if they can only get a couple more pieces in place. Christian Ponder looks to be good enough to be their plan at QB, and the club has finally figured out how to properly use Percy Harvin (when he's healthy). Minnesota is ranked 28th this week.

And now, without further ado, here are your full rankings for the week.

6 Responses to “Team Rankings: Week Fourteen”

Saints' stupid losses to the Bucs and Rams are looking very costly as it's now looking pretty likely they'll have to go play the 49ers' outstanding defense on their terrible turf. Would still favor the Saints because they are a better team, but it'll be tough. Shame, too, because if Rodgers doesn't get hurt the Packers will beat the 49ers by two scores in the NFCC, should it come to that. Saints/Packers would be an outstanding game, especially given NO's improved run SR, and short yardage and red-zone running cost them the game at GB.

It's particularly fun to read about how objective ranking systems like this differ from a more intuitive sense of reality, and why, and what the differences say about the weaknesses of our intuition and the weaknesses of the system's rules. Fun stuff. I also feel like I'm babbling, so I'll shut up.

I'm confused by the disparity between O and D rankings in the visualizer graphic and the team rankings. Houston had the #5 oEPA & #4 dEPA, but is ranked #4 O and #1 D in the team rankings. It would be nice if the two charts displayed the same information.

The graphic is showing total EPA--past net point generation, unadjusted for opponent. The table in this post is based on per play efficiency, and is calibrated to be predictive rather than explanatory by reducing the weight of less consistent aspects of play--primarily turnovers.

@BBurkeESPN

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